Language: PG (0 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - ADVISABLE
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Having been through several attempted apprenticeships already, Clara is losing hope that she will ever control her magic well enough to be recognized as a witch. When Clara accidentally curses her father, she is desperate to save him – desperate enough to promise her estranged best friend all of her magic in exchange for his help.
I loved Clara’s magic and all the flowers that randomly popped up to give insight into how Clara was feeling and how her magic worked. The story was engaging and hopeful, even as Clara struggled with a voice we have all heard: the voice in our minds telling us that we can’t, that we always mess up, that we will never be good enough. Bakewell introduces a magic system that is based heavily on confidence, which forces Clara to live with – but not be controlled by – her doubts. My one hang up with the story was that Xavier is said to be 16 years old, which means Clara is about that age as well, but they were introduced as having so much history together that I couldn’t imagine them to be that young by the time age was finally mentioned.
Clara is depicted as white on the cover, Madam Ben Ammar has “deep brown” skin, and Robin has “golden-brown” skin. The language rating is for use of a British swear word, the mature content rating is for alcohol use, and the violence rating is for fantasy violence and curses.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment